Recent Reads

The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Don't believe anyone who promises to explain string theory or M-theory. That's all I'm saying. Cos no one can. Because no one knows what's really going on! And if Stephen Hawking doesn't know what's going on with dark matter and ten or eleven or twelve dimensions and can't posit a cogent theory of everything, well, it just doesn't bear thinking about.*

Hawking and Mlodinow's premise is to address the question of whether the universe was designed or whether it popped spontaneously into existence and continued merrily on it's way to the point we're now at (assuming that time is linear, which we can't of course; that would be far too much to hope for, things being as simple as that), and it's true that this is what at least half this book is about. The other half is gibberish that only physicists would understand. Still, an interesting read. And I felt very brainy holding it up on the train.

*And even if he could, geniuses aren't very good at explaining things to laypeople. Hawking should have told this book to Bill Bryson, who could have then passed on the important bits to us. And the jokes would have been funnier.

Genesis: The Rosie Black Chronicles, Lara Morgan
Gotta love a YA sci-fi novel by an Australian author, set in Australia! Well, I do. Genesis is an adventure story set in Newperth 500 years in the future, a time when colonies exist on Mars and terrible diseases plague the earth. Though Morgan insists that Genesis, the first in a trilogy, is dystopian rather than sci-fi, I'm inclined to lean towards the latter. Genesis has a definite sci-fi grounding with a post-apocalyptic flavour. After the discovery of a mysterious box, Rosie and her friend set off a beacon and a series of events that will have great importance to the future of the human race as well as shed some light on the death of Rosie's mother. The adventure takes Rosie to Mars, and one of my favourite sequences was a hair-raising planet fall (look at me picking up the lingo) in a tiny pod down to Mars's surface.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman
This one is actually three quarters read and I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it. It's DARK. Seriously dark. Torture and death and true love not seeming to conquer anything. It started off brightly enough--and I have to say Golding's forewords had me enthralled. Pretending not to be the author, I think that's just brilliant. And the things he said about his ex-wife and son! I saw the film many, many years ago and thought it utter rubbish. Someone made the mistake of saying, "If you love Labyrinth you'll love The Princess Bride." Um. NO. So of course I hated it because it does not hold a sputtering candle to my beloved Labyrinth, and also because it's so CORNY. All those silly asides. The stupid phrases. But the book is beautifully written and actually very witty...it just gets rather disturbing and I remember nothing past Wesley and Buttercup tumbling down into the ravine in the film so I can't remember if it has a happy ending or not.

Should I go on and just finish it?

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
After reading several stories in I, Robot, I moaned to a friend that Asimov couldn't write a decent character to save his life. He agreed, and sent me a link to this story (which I have provided to you; click the title above), saying Asimov's stories are far better when they're pure ideas. How true. The Last Question is pure ideas, and it's a very engaging read.

For the love of learning

On Friday night I realised I'm possibly a bit of a freak. I attended an astrophysics lecture at Swinburne University on gravitational lensing. Now, this in itself isn't particularly freaky, depending on how you like to spend your Friday nights. (After the lecture I proceeded to a bar, met with beings called "friends" and swilled a sparkly clear substance. I hear this is considered normal behaviour for 25-year-old girls. I'm still looking in to this.)

The lecture was given by a professor from Caltech, a rather serious-looking gentleman who, upon rising and opening his mouth, gave one of the most enrapturing lectures I have ever heard. I'm not well versed in astrophysics at all. My research so far has consisted of looking at pictures like this and saying, "Ooh, galaxies. Pretty" and having very little idea about what was going on in them:


Can you see those lines of light in the image, and the way some things look stretched? Gravitational lensing explains why that is, and if you're looking for an explanation you can find one here. I won't attempt to explain it myself. I got the gist of it, but the gist hardly does something like this justice.

About halfway through the lecture I was dimly aware of a warm sensation in my chest. The tingly sensation persisted when I left the lecture theatre and boarded a train. I wasn't paying it much attention as I was busy pondering this RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME phenomena that was TOTALLY NEW TO ME and wondering how I could incorporate it into an idea I have for a sci-fi novel.

I drifted around inside my head for a while longer and then became aware of what my body was doing. Hello, what is this? Why the warm and fuzzies? There was something familiar about this sensation, but I couldn't put my finger on it at first. It was a little like excitement, a little like the apprehension you get when you're stand on the edge of a very high place, and a lot like the sensation you get from drinking the aforesaid sparkly clear substance.

Then I realised what it was.

It's the same sensation I get when I'm FALLING IN LOVE.

There. I told you I'm a freak. I've always loved learning, but really, what the frack?! The psych major in me wants to give myself an fMRI scan and see which bits light up when I read something cool about, I don't know, quarks or something, and the bits that light up when I think about...OK, I don't have a boyfriend right now, but if I did and thought about him I bet the areas would be THE SAME.

I'm reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow right now and if things continue as they are I'll probably end up proposing to my paperback copy by page 176.*

What about you? Have you ever had an extreme emotional response to something unexpected?

*Note: I have since finished said book. I do NOT feel the urge to marry it. I very much feel the need to splutter at it wildly saying things like "For laypeople my ARSE." Review shortly.

NOT In My Mailbox

I went to buy this book yesterday


and to my horror it wasn't available! Stephen Hawking is so famous we even had a cat named after him , and yet it's not here. Just goes to show bad things can still happen to you if you're famous.

Ten days late and counting!